Old Rickety & Wobbly - Day 95

  The last narrow-gage railroad to run in Ohio (until 1931) was a line that ran from Bellaire in the east to Zanesville in the west. It was originally incorporated as the Ohio River & Western Railroad. Narrow gage trains have a bad habit of falling off the tracks when things aren't aligned very carefully. And many of these old lines were laid in haste.

Before long the name was changed to Bellaire, Zanesville & Cincinnati, BZ&C. Bent, Zig-zag and Crooked. You get the idea. I guess the Cincinnati part was just wishful thinking.

A couple of days ago, the trail followed this road for a while. The OR & W Tunnel Road. The Buckeye Trail map says the tunnel was near the corner of this road and Parry Road. The exact location of this tunnel has been eluding me for years.

When Marie and I hiked here years ago, we found a man in Sarahsville (just north of the trail) who said he knew where it was because it was on his grandfather's farm and he played in it as a child, although most of it was caved in. But he did not have time to take us there.

The trail also has to be on or near the OR&W route in Belle Valley. It might have run on or beside Wolf Run Drive.

Anyway, near Summerfield (not on the trail, but on the way to where we are staying, and near the OR&W line), I spotted this sad railcar. Very narrow. I suspect a relic of the OR&W.

I believe this is an OR&W caboose, restored, although it does not have the name painted on.

I'll just have to come back for serious railroad sniffing some time!

We also passed Seneca Lake- not the one in New York near where I grew up!

And before that the Senecaville Fire Tower. No longer in service, of course, but somewhat odd in that it was painted red.

The weather was astonishing. It got to 80 in the sun. We ate lunch in a cemetery on a hilltop watching clouds in the blue sky. We passed a smallfamily cemetery with graves of four people born in the 1700s! The biggest challenge was there were many more hills in the last three miles than we expected, and we are not yet used to the heat. But we finished in good time.

Miles today: 15.7. Total miles so far: 1223.9.

See Crash of the Shenandoah